Russia Reacts To U.S. Missile Strike In Syria

Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s most important backer on the world stage, condemned early Friday a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian airbase as “an aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement that Putin believes President Trump ordered the strikes under a “far-fetched pretext.”

President Trump gave the command on Thursday for U.S. warships to fire a salvo of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat airfield in Homs province.
American military officials say a Syrian jet, flying from Shayrat, carried out the Tuesday morning chemical weapons attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. That attack left more than 70 people dead, including many children, and involved the deadly nerve agent Sarin gas, according to autopsies carried out in Turkey.

Syria’s army on Friday decried the U.S. strike as “an outrageous aggression.”  CBS News correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti says Syrian officials described the strike, however, as “limited and expected.” They were unconfirmed reports that some Syrian aircraft were removed from the Shayrat site ahead of the U.S. strike. The damage to the airstrips, munitions and command and control infrastructure at the base, however, was said to be significant.
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has denied carrying out the chemical attack on Tuesday, saying any chemical agents released were from a rebel stockpile hit in conventional strikes carried out by Syrian warplanes. Russia backed up that explanation, and continued Friday to argue that rebel chemical weapons capabilities were being ignored.

Experts refute the claim that a conventional strike would have dispersed chemical weapons, saying such a strike would instead have destroy the toxic chemical agents. In addition, chemical weapons experts say a conventional strike on a chemical stockpile wouldn’t have produced the harrowing scenes that have been broadcast around the world: People with no visible wounds, foaming at the mouth and suffocating to death.

Trump said he authorized the airstrike because “it is in the vital, national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the use of deadly chemical weapons.”

Syria’s military said Friday that six soldiers were killed and several more wounded in the strike, and it declared the U.S. a “partner with ISIS, Nusra, and other terrorist groups” for launching an attack against Syrian forces. In a video statement, a Syrian commander said his forces would respond to the attack by continuing to “fight terrorism” wherever it exists.

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford says there's a possibility that Iranian revolutionary guard troops could be among the casualties.

"The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah and the Russians have been the ones propping up Assad.  So while a lot of the American media has focused on Russia, the middle eastern media knows it's the Iranians and Hezbollah out of Lebanon who have been the troops on the ground for Assad."

Lankford says he's not worried about the issue escalating with Russia because the strike was focused just on the one airbase.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.